Reading Comprehension

Comprehension involves both the decoding of words in a text as well as gaining an understanding of the words and making mental imagery of their meaning. Reading comprehension is extracting and creating meaning from words in a text. There are three components in comprehension. Consisting of The reader, things that make people individual such as culture, knowledge and personality, the texts refers to print or electronic text as well as the different genres and the activity which has three stages to it. The purpose for reading, the processes (brain activity that occurs when reading) and the consequences of reading (what people learn and gain from text).

Comprehension activities help children gain a better understanding of texts. KWL is a strategy that allows children to further develop their knowledge about a previously discussed topic. It stands for K- what I know, W- what I want to learn and L- what have I learned. A topic for example could be lions so teachers discuss either as a whole class or in groups what the students know about lions (K), then what they would like to know about the animal (W). The topic is then researched and the group(s) discuss what they have learnt (L) at the end. There are different teaching strategies for different texts, such as a narrative and an informative book. Reading texts from a diverse range of genres and different topics will help young children to enhance their comprehension skills and better understand the processes and purposes of reading.